BGSQD

Closing Party for You Left a Mark on Me (in person only)
2025-01-05 17:00 - 19:00 (America/New_York) | Bureau of General Services–Queer Division, 208 West 13th Street, Room 210, New York, NY, 10011, United States
Join us for the closing party for You Left a Mark on Me on the very last day of the exhibition!
Free and open to all! Free non-alcoholic beverages will be served.
About the exhibition:
The Bureau of General Services—Queer Division presents You Left A Mark On Me, an exhibition highlighting Queer tattoo artists with an art practice outside of their tattoo work; and Queer artists who utilize tattoo imagery in their work. Curated by Zach Grear and Nelson Santos, the exhibition features paintings, drawings, ceramics, and embroidery work by Colton Ackerman, Alexandria Deters, Virginia Elwood, Evan Paul English, Zach Grear, Christian Lord, Dewey Rice, Lancelot Runge, Tamara Santibañez, and Zyra West.
You Left A Mark On Me looks at the close ties that mark-making and queer bodies connect communities and the creative outputs that come from it. The tattoo artists in this exhibition find alternative forms of mark-making beyond the flesh, whether it’s using their hands to mold clay (Christian Lord, Tamara Santibañez), building sculptures and painting with yarn (Virginia Elwood), or making broad and colorful paint strokes (Evan Paul English, Dewey Rice, Zyra West). On the other end of the spectrum, You Left A Mark On Me, brings together queer artists (Colton Ackerman, Alexandria Deters, Zach Grear, and Lancelot Runge) that are influenced by tattoo imagery, and use ink, thread, and found images to mark the body on paper, playing with iconic tattoo graphics and colorful patterns.
The curators, Zach Grear and Nelson Santos are also artists and collectors of tattoos, interested in how these queer communities intertwine and connect. There is often a deep connection when a queer body is marked by another queer body and the way art expresses this queer magic and beauty.

Manhattan Institute for Psychoanalysis Colloquium with Judith Rustin (co-sponsored by the Program in Trauma Studies)
2025-01-10 19:30 - 21:00 | Bureau of General Services–Queer Division, 208 West 13th Street, Room 210, New York, NY, 10011, United States
Judith Rustin Colloquium: “Beyond the Words: The Implicit Dimension of Psychoanalytic Treatment”
This presentation introduces some basic concepts from infant research and neuroscience. Infant research describes how very early memories are formed and encoded thereby providing access to how they might show themselves from birth onwards. The concepts from neuroscience used in this presentation are simple versions for the non-scientist. They are used to explain some basic functions of how the brain processes information with specific emphasis on memory formation and the mind/body connection. I argue that humans are “mindbodybrains.” Whereas psychoanalysis has privileged “mind” in its theories, this presentation offers additional knowledge and language to link it to “body” and “brains,” and to provide a way to communicate these links to patients. This language expands the clinical repertoire.
Learning Objectives

Be able to describe the three components of the Triune Brain and the function of each
Be able to describe the difference between explicit and implicit communication
Be able to describe the kinds of memories(s) infants are able to encode and how they might be expressed in adulthood
Be able to describe the two components of embodied communication

The Manhattan Institute is a NY State approved provider of continuing education hours for: LCSW, LMSW, LCAT, LMHC and Licensed Psychologists.
For in-person attendance you will receive an E-ticket through Eventbrite.
TICKETS: $50.00
please RSVP here
Students at other Institutes can purchase tickets for $25.00
(Proof of student status required)
MIP candidates can attend for free.
A Zoom link will be sent to everyone who signs up through Eventbrite for those who would like to join remotely.
This event will take place in person at the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division, on the second floor (room 210) of The LGBT Community Center, 208 W. 13th St., NYC, 10011.

Judith Rustin, LCSW, is Faculty and Supervisor at The Institute for the Psychoanalytic Study of Subjectivity in New York City and a Consultant in the Trauma Certificate Program of Manhattan Institute for Psychoanalysis. She has authored numerous papers and spoken nationally and internationally on the integration of Intersubjectivity Theory as defined by Robert Stolorow and Collaborators with Infant Research and Neuroscience. She is author of Infant Research and Neuroscience at Work in Psychotherapy: Expanding the Clinical Repertoire (2013) and co-author with B. Beebe, S. Knoblauch and D. Sorter (2005) of Forms of Intersubjectivity in Infant Research and Adult Treatment. Judith is in Private Practice in New York City.

lesbian book club
2025-01-11 11:00 - 12:00 | Bureau of General Services–Queer Division, 208 West 13th Street, Room 210, New York, NY, 10011, United States
We’ll be reading fiction and non-fiction — classic, contemporary, revealing and visionary. As a group we will decide what to read each month, focusing on lesbian authors and/or related topics. Co-founded by lesbian book lovers Judi Komaki and Piper Olsen.

For our January 11th meeting, we’ll read No Modernism without Lesbians by Diana Souhami (Head of Zeus, 2021, paperback, $15.95). To reserve a copy, please write to us at contact@bgsqd.comwith “please reserve a copy of No Modernism without Lesbians” in the subject line. Purchase the book before January 11th and receive 15% off ($13.56 instead of $15.95).

And for our February 8th meeting, we’ll read Courting Justice: Gay Men and Lesbians V. the Supreme Court, by Deb Price and Joyce Murdoch (Basic Books, 2002, paperback, $25.99). Unfortunately the Bureau is unable to offer a discount on this title because our distributor only offers this book at retail price, rather than wholesale. So if you’d like to purchase the book from us, please let us know as soon as possible and we’ll order a copy for you. Email us at contact@bgsqd.com with “please order a copy of Courting Justice for me” in the subject line.

Thank you for supporting the Bureau by purchasing books from us!

This event will take place in person at the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division, on the second floor (room 210) of The LGBT Community Center, 208 W. 13th St., NYC, 10011.
Registration is not required.

RESISTING PROJECT 2025 PODCAST EPISODE 8: RESISTANCE 2.0: THE EMERGING PLAYBOOK TO FIGHTING PROJECT 2025 & T***P 2.0 (in person & live-streaming)
2025-01-15 19:00 - 20:30 | Bureau of General Services–Queer Division, 208 West 13th Street, Room 210, New York, NY, 10011, United States
Resistance 2.0. What is it? Who is mobilizing? Who is on the frontlines? What’s being done to stop or put a brake on T***p 2.0 and the “Day One” weaponization of Project 2025?
Join us on January 15th at 7-8:30 pm for the official 2025 launch of our rebranded Resisting Project 2025 podcast (formerly Revisioning Democracy). We’re back for year two at the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division in NYC and streaming online. We’ve restructured our podcast as an all-team effort and convo with special regular features and special guests — focused on how we build and support community and broad resistance to Project 2025 and T***p 2.0 for the road ahead.
Campaign team: Anne-christine d’Adesky, Jay W. Walker, Sally O’Driscoll, Juno Rosenhaus, Saba Bando, Javier Morales.
Our relaunch takes places five days before the inauguration and three days before the planned People’s March in Washington, DC, on January 18th. We’ll be providing an overview and spotlight updates about what we’ve learned about the current scope and forms of Resistance 2.0 to the planned “Day One” weaponization of Project 2025 – which defines T***p 2.0. We’ll also talk about what our campaign plans for 2025. Tune in for a critical public conversation on resisting authoritarianism and defending our democracy.

This event will take place in person at the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division, on the second floor (room 210) of The LGBT Community Center, 208 W. 13th St., NYC, 10011.

Registration is not required. Seating is first come, first served.

Also live-streaming on the Bureau’s YouTube channel:
youtube.com/@bgsqd

Resisting Project 2025 Core Team
Anne-christine d’Adesky
FOUNDER
An award-winning independent journalist, author, feminist, longtime human rights, LGBTQIA+, gender equality, HIV and immigration activist. ACT UP member; co-founder of the Lesbian Avengers, PotoFanm+Fi in Haiti.
[Photo: Juno Rosenhaus]
Jay W. Walker
SOCIAL MEDIA MANAGER
A queer Black leader, community organizer and longtime NYC activist on LGBTQIA+, HIV, and racial justice issues. Founding member, Rise and Resist; President, Gays Against Guns; Co-founder, NYC Queer Liberation March.
[Photo: Ryan McGinley Studios]
Juno Rosenhaus
WEBSITE MANAGER
Activist, artist, feminist, web designer. All things intergenerational, intersectional and Dyke. Founder of the Dyke+ ArtHaus in Philadelphia.
[Photo: Juno Rosenhaus]
Sally O’Driscoll
EDITORIAL TEAM
Writer, editor, and researcher. English literature PhD scholar, writer, feminist, proud lesbian, queer activist on feminism, sexual rights, reproductive health, transgender and other LGBTQ+ issues.
[Photo: Bob Hranichny]
Saba Bando
VOLUNTEER COORDINATOR
Executive and personal coach committed to disability rights, women’s rights, social justice, racial justice; first-generation immigrant, proud mother of a wheelchair-user. She resides in the Chicago-area with her husband and son.
Javier Morales
Latino Mobilization, Spanish translation.
Morales coordinates LATINX+, a US-based network of people of Latin descent living with HIV, fighting criminalization and stigma. He lives in Milford, PA, where he is Artistic Director for Pike Opera, with his husband, Sean Strub, and their dog Alfie.

Opening Reception for What Are You Looking At? (in person only)
2025-01-16 18:00 - 20:00 | Bureau of General Services–Queer Division, 208 West 13th Street, Room 210, New York, NY, 10011, United States
What are you looking at?
An art show in five acts
On view at the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division
January 16 – April 20, 2025
Opening Reception: Thursday, January 16, 2025, 6 to 8 PM
Daniel Cavanaugh :: Kelwin Coleman :: Norbert Garcia Jr. ::
Bouﬀant Bouﬀant :: Scott Mabe
There is a fantastic space where no one lives. It exists in between the subject and the artist. These five artists work with the photographic image to present this space—from the extraordinarily faithful to the imagined confessional. A Grecian urn houses the ashes of the dead while their story is festooned on its hide; John Keats asks in “Ode to A Grecian Urn,” What men or gods are these? Portraiture is our modern day Grecian urn. Within these works, masculinity is held inside the shape of loss, though its history remains immortalized upon the exterior. Comparably, Marsden Hartley’s Portrait of a German Officer presents the essence of this ideology. Often the emotional and representational implications of the work are overshadowed by its painterly formal aspects, which creates a disservice to the genre of portraiture. Hartley’s portrait of his lover Karl Von Freyburg, who went to war and died, is depicted through no human form. We see dramatic colors and brushstrokes outline both emotion and explanation. And now, daily, we consume portraits without question and make the absorption digestible, further simplifying the genre. This exhibition asks the viewer to see beyond the obvious. Yes, the artists are queer. Yes, there is queer celebration and contemplation.
Yes, there is sex but what is beyond the exterior?
What are you looking at?

HOMOCATS: Join The Party zine launch + reading (in person & live-streaming)
2025-01-17 18:30 - 20:30 | Bureau of General Services–Queer Division, 208 West 13th Street, Room 210, New York, NY, 10011, United States
Please join artist J. Morrison and special guests for the NYC launch of
“HOMOCATS: Join The Party” at the Bureau!
HOMOCATS are excited to release the thirteenth zine in the series. “Join The Party” is created as a call to action to protest the incoming administration, while striving for community and togetherness in the difficult times we are living through.
The launch will also feature the updated HOMOCATS boxed set containing 12 zines from the series, as well as a selection of screen-printed apparel.
All the zines are created with original physical art and collages, and photocopied by hand by the artist.
Friday, January 17th
Check in at 6:30pm
Readings at 7:00pm

Featured HOMOCATS zine readers:
Dehlia Hennessy Brown
Jorge Clar
Carl Ferrero
Robert Hammond
Donnie Jochum
Lisa Levy
Douglas A. Martin
Eva Mueller
Lloyd Mulvey
Greg Newton
Xavier Smith
Christopher Stout
This event will take place in person at the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division, on the second floor (room 210) of The LGBT Community Center, 208 W. 13th St., NYC, 10011.

Registration is not required. Seating is first come, first served.

Also live-streaming on the Bureau’s YouTube channel:
youtube.com/@bgsqd
The Bureau will solicit donations at the beginning of the event—we especially encourage donations from those who do not plan to purchase any books.
All are welcome to attend, with or without a donation.

We will pass a bag for donations at the start of the event, but we can also take credit card donations at the register or on Venmo @BGSQD

Created by Brooklyn artist J. Morrison in 2010, HOMOCATS is a visual art and zine publication connecting the modern popularity of the feline with social politics.
Our mission aims to fight phobias, propose equal rights, combat cultural stereotypes, question social norms, resist T***pism, and make the world a better place.

TELL: Having Fun! (in person & live-streaming)
2025-01-18 19:00 - 20:30 | Bureau of General Services–Queer Division, 208 West 13th Street, Room 210, New York, NY, 10011, United States
TELL is a monthly queer storytelling show hosted and curated by Drae Campbell. It is the longest running event at the Bureau! 10 years and going. Each month there is a different theme and a different line up of queer artists who tell true stories from their lives on a theme.
The theme for January is Having Fun!, featuring storytellers Kelli Dunham, Frankie Vaughan, and Nonye Brown-West.

This event will take place in person at the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division, on the second floor (room 210) of The LGBT Community Center, 208 W. 13th St., NYC, 10011.
Registration is not required. Seating is first come, first served.
Also live-streaming on the Bureau’s YouTube channel:
youtube.com/@bgsqd
Suggested donation to benefit the storytellers and the Bureau: $10.
All are welcome to attend, with or without a donation.
We will pass a bag for donations at the start of the event, but we can also take credit card donations at the register or on Venmo @BGSQD

Drae Campbellis the host and curator of TELL, an award winning podcast that can be found anywhere you listen to podcasts.
Theater: The Nosebleed (Lincoln Center Theater, Woolly Mammoth Theater & National Tour, Lortel Nominated), Jesus Hopped The ‘A’ Train (Wellfleet Harbor Actors Theater), Only You Can Prevent Wildfires (Teatro Circulo), My Old Man (Dixon Place), Storm Still (DirectorFest, Drama League), La Cage Aux Folles (Barrington Stage Company).
Film and TV:Senior Escort Service, Blunderpuss, It’s Very Common, TOW.
TV: Bull, New Amsterdam.
BFA, The University Of The Arts
Ig @draebiz and @tellqueerz

Kelli Dunham is the nonbinary ex-nun storytelling nurse author trauma-informed comedian so ubiquitous in modern Brooklyn and has appeared on Showtime, BBC4’S Sunday Religion in Culture Program, the Discovery Channel, the Moth Mainstage and the occasional livestock auction. Kelli is the author of seven hilarious books about non-hilarious subjects and speaks frequently (also hilariously) to people with impossible jobs about using humor to combat vicarious trauma, deal with stress, and resolve conflict. But Kelli recently lost some business because of the upcoming political situation, so invite Kelli to speak at your conference!

PGN named Kelli one of “48 LGBT Creative People Of Influence” in 2024 and former NYC mayor Bill DeBlasio once called Kelli “a show off.” To Kelli’s face.
Kelli Dunham, RN BSN

Frankie Vaughan is based in New York, and making new work between here and Berlin. Frankie works with video, sharing his familiar stories — including 3am ER visits, odd jobs he’s worked, and awkward sexual encounters. Using video as a visual language, he draws on his own experiences — familiar, platonic, romantic, and imaginary ones — formulating them to a concise topical material.
Frankie is currently earning his MFA in Visual Art and MA in Art History at Purchase College.

Nonye Brown-West is a New York-based Nigerian-American comedian and writer. She has been featured in the Boston Globe’s Rise column as a Comic to Watch, as well as in NPR, PBS, Amazon Prime, Sway In The Morning, and the New York Comedy Festival.

OUTspoken: The Publishing Triangle’s Reading Series, January Edition (in person & live-streaming)
2025-01-24 19:00 - 21:00 | Bureau of General Services—Queer Division, 208 West 13th Street, Room 210, New York, NY, 10011, United States
The Publishing Triangle presents its monthly OUTspoken Reading Series as host Rob Byrnes welcomes Michael Thomas Ford, Donna Minkowitz, Carsen Taite, Shawn Stewart Ruff, C. Winter Han, Georgia Beers, Gar McVey-Russell, Anne Laughlin, Chris Shirley, and Rob Osler.

Join us in-person or watch the live-stream to hear from some of queer literature’s most dynamic established and up-and-coming voices.

This event will take place in person at the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division, on the second floor (room 210) of The LGBT Community Center, 208 W. 13th St., NYC, 10011.

Registration is not required. Seating is first come, first served.

Also live-streaming on the Bureau’s YouTube channel:
youtube.com/@bgsqd
The Bureau will solicit donations at the beginning of the event—we especially encourage donations from those who do not plan to purchase any books.
All are welcome to attend, with or without a donation.

We will pass a bag for donations at the start of the event, but we can also take credit card donations at the register or on Venmo @BGSQD

The Best Bi Erotica of the Year: In-person book launch & reading (in person and live-streaming)
2025-01-25 15:00 - 16:00 | Bureau of General Services–Queer Division, 208 West 13th Street, Room 210, New York, NY, 10011, United States
Organized and edited by erotic author Christian Pan, The Best Bi Erotica of the Year, Volume One features exclusive and sensual stories by fifteen different authors from across the United States and Canada, broadening our understanding of bisexuality and the possibilities within the erotic imagination. Join four of the anthology’s contributing authors as they read excerpts from their stories, followed by a signing. Copies of The Best Bi Erotica of the Year and other titles by the authors will be available for purchase at the Bureau.

This event will take place in person at the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division, on the second floor (room 210) of The LGBT Community Center, 208 W. 13th St., NYC, 10011.

Registration is not required. Seating is first come, first served.

Also live-streaming on the Bureau’s YouTube channel:
youtube.com/@bgsqd
The Bureau will solicit donations at the beginning of the event—we especially encourage donations from those who do not plan to purchase any books.
All are welcome to attend, with or without a donation.

We will pass a bag for donations at the start of the event, but we can also take credit card donations at the register or on Venmo @BGSQD

Maeve Blackhead is a poet, painter, and researcher. She lives in New York City.
Eskay Kabba finds the complexity of human nature and creates romantic and erotic love stories. Eskay pens erotic romance novels that celebrate the LGBTQ community, people of color, and interracial relationships. Find her at
www.eskaykabba.com
Candice Leigh is a sex and intimacy coach, somatic sex educator, Erotic Blueprint coach, Somatic Experiencing practitioner and writer in NYC. She uses experiential, trauma informed modalities bridging neo-tantra, sexuality coaching, breathwork, and talk therapy to encourage clients to courageously embrace their vulnerability, body, mind, heart, soul and eros.
https://www.candiceleighcoaching.com/
Christian Pan writes erotic fiction that frequently explores bisexual identity and experience. He is the editor & organizer of The Best Bi Erotica of the Year, Volume One, and his books Reunion and Dirty Words are all available at the Bureau. For more information, please go to linktr.ee/christianpan

Harvard Gender and Sexuality Caucus Author Forum: Michelle Lerner (in person & live-streaming)
2025-01-26 15:00 - 16:30 | Bureau of General Services–Queer Division, 208 West 13th Street, Room 210, New York, NY, 10011, United States
Harvard Gender and Sexuality Caucus NYC presents Michelle Lerner (HLS ’98), author of Ring, a new novel that contemplates loss and the sanctuary between hope and despair. Jonathan Vatner (’01), author of The Bridesmaids Union, will join her in conversation.

To reserve a copy of Ring (Bancroft Press, January 28, 2025, paperback, $23.95) please write to us at contact@bgsqd.com with “please reserve a copy of Ring for Jan. 26 event” in the subject line.
Thank you for supporting the Bureau by purchasing books from us!
This event will take place in person at the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division, on the second floor (room 210) of The LGBT Community Center, 208 W. 13th St., NYC, 10011.

Registration is not required. Seating is first come, first served.

Also live-streaming on the Bureau’s YouTube channel:
youtube.com/@bgsqd
The Bureau will solicit donations at the beginning of the event—we especially encourage donations from those who do not plan to purchase any books.
All are welcome to attend, with or without a donation.

We will pass a bag for donations at the start of the event, but we can also take credit card donations at the register or on Venmo @BGSQD

Michelle Lerner is the author of the poetry chapbook Protection (Poetry Box, 2021) and the novel Ring (Bancroft Press, 2025), and her writing appears in VQR, Shenandoah, Lips, Paterson Literary Review, and many other journals and anthologies.

Jonathan Vatner is the author of The Bridesmaids Union (St. Martin’s Press, 2022) and Carnegie Hill (Thomas Dunne Books, 2019). His fiction has earned praise from People, Town & Country, The New York Post, and the Los Angeles Review of Books. He is the managing editor of Hue, the magazine of the Fashion Institute of Technology, and teaches fiction writing at New York University and the Hudson Valley Writers Center.

Giddy Up! Celebrating Cowboy Park by Eduardo Martínez-Leyva (in person only)
2025-01-30 19:00 - 20:30 | Bureau of General Services–Queer Division, 208 West 13th Street, Room 210, New York, NY, 10011, United States
Join us for a dynamic evening at the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division as we celebrate the debut poetry collection, Cowboy Park, by Eduardo Martínez-Leyva. Immerse yourself in poems that explore self-acceptance and self-discovery along the U.S.-Mexico border. The event will also feature readings by LGBTQ poets River 瑩瑩 Dandelion, Seth Leeper, and Francisco Márquez. Don’t miss this opportunity to connect with the world of Latinx literature and support the LGBTQ community.
To reserve a copy of Cowboy Park (Wisconsin University Press, November 2024, paperback, $17.95), please write to us at contact@bgsqd.com with “please reserve a copy of Cowboy Park for Jan. 30th event” in the subject line.
Thank you for supporting the Bureau by purchasing books from us!

This event will take place in person at the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division, on the second floor (room 210) of The LGBT Community Center, 208 W. 13th St., NYC, 10011.
Registration is not required. Seating is first come, first served.
The Bureau will solicit donations at the beginning of the event—we especially encourage donations from those who do not plan to purchase any books.
All are welcome to attend, with or without a donation.
We will pass a bag for donations at the start of the event, but we can also take credit card donations at the register or on Venmo @BGSQD

Eduardo Martínez-Leyva was born in El Paso, TX to Mexican immigrants. His work has appeared in Poetry Magazine, The Boston Review, The Adroit Journal, Frontier Poetry, The Hopkins Review, Best New Poets, and elsewhere. He’s received fellowships from CantoMundo, The Frost Place, the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, the Lambda Literary Foundation, a teaching fellowship from Columbia University, where he earned his MFA, and was the writer-in-residence at St. Albans School for Boys in Washington D.C. His debut poetry collection, Cowboy Park, was selected by Amaud Jamaul Johnson for the 2024 Felix Pollak Prize in Poetry and is part of The Wisconsin Poetry Series published by the University of Wisconsin Press.

River 瑩瑩 Dandelion (he, him, keoi 佢) walks with his ancestors. He is a practitioner of ancestral medicine through writing, teaching, energy healing, and creating ceremony. As a poet, he writes to connect with the unseen and unspoken so we can feel and heal. River is the winner of the 2024 Lambda Literary Award for Exceptional New LGBTQ Writers. He is the author of remembering (y)our light, a debut chapbook on honoring matriarchs and ancestors across generations.

Seth Leeper is a queer poet. His work has appeared, or is forthcoming in Foglifter, Waxing, Poet Lore, Prairie Schooner, OnlyPoems, Salamander, and Sycamore Review . He holds an M.S. in Special Education from Pace University and B.A. in Creative Writing and Fashion Journalism from San Francisco State University. He is a candidate in the Low Residency MFA in Creative Writing Program at Randolph College. His work has been nominated for Best New Poets, Best of the Net, and Pushcart awards. He teaches drop in and virtual workshops for Brooklyn Poets.

Francisco Márquez is a poet from Maracaibo, Venezuela, born in Miami, Florida. His work has been featured in the Y ale Review, the Brooklyn Rail, the Slowdown podcast, and the Best American Poetry anthology. He has received support from the Tin House Writer’s Workshop, The Poetry Project, and the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, where he was a 2019-2020 Poetry Fellow . He lives in Brooklyn, New York.

(Re) Present (in person only)
2025-01-31 19:00 - 21:00 | Bureau of General Services–Queer Division, 208 West 13th Street, Room 210, New York, NY, 10011, United States
No, Dear Magazine’s (Re)Present Reading Series seeks to pay homage to the New York City poets whose voices are now absent from our lives, especially those voices whose indelible imprint has sustained a revolutionary poetics by connecting us to a history prior to, and in opposition to, mass gentrification and corporate takeover. By collaborating with local poets, our intention is to represent and re-present those poets who are gone and honor how their voices continue to live on within the revolutionary spirit of New York City poetry.
Featuring readings by Kyle Carrero Lopez, Joey De Jesus, Marti Irving, Omotara James, and Kat Rejsek.

This event will take place in person at the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division, on the second floor (room 210) of The LGBT Community Center, 208 W. 13th St., NYC, 10011.

Registration is not required. Seating is first come, first served.
The Bureau will solicit donations at the beginning of the event—we especially encourage donations from those who do not plan to purchase any books. All are welcome to attend, with or without a donation. We will pass a bag for donations at the start of the event, but we can also take credit card donations at the event or on Venmo @BGSQD

Kyle Carrero Lopez is the author of the chapbook Muscle Memory, published by PANK Books in 2022. His recent poems appear in The Yale Review, office magazine, and Split this Rock, and his debut full-length collection PARTY LINE is forthcoming from Graywolf Press in 2026. @kylecarrerolopez

Joey De Jesus is the author of HOAX Limited Artist Edition (Operating System, 2022), and chapbooks: We Animate the Dream: A Poet’s Run for Public Oﬃce (Mount Analog Political Pamphlet Series II, 2021) and NOCT- The Threshold of Madness (The Atlas Review, 2019). Joey received the 2019-20 BRIC ArtFP Project Room Commission for HOAX and 2017 NYFA/NYSCA Fellowship in Poetry. Poems have appeared in Poem-A-Day, Barrow Street, Bettering American Poetry, The Brooklyn Rail, The Texas Review, and elsewhere. Joey is senior co-editor at Apogee Journal and lives in Ridgewood where they ran for New York State Assembly District 38. @DeJesusSaves

Marti Irving is a poet and tinkerer living in Brooklyn with three black cats and one grey one. Their poems have appeared in American Chordata, Bodega Mag, Pigeon Pages, and the Yale Review.

Omotara James is the author of the debut poetry collection, Song of My Softening, (Alice James Books, 2024), featured on NPR’s Morning Edition and The Washington Post Book Club. Her work has received support from the Poetry Foundation, the New York Foundation of the Arts, the 92Y Unterberg Poetry Center, Cave Canem Foundation, Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, Lambda Literary and the Academy of American Poets. She writes, teaches andedits poetry in New York City. @omotarajames

Kat Rejsek is a poet and filmmaker. They have an MFA and are the co-author of a chapbook called Aside from my everyday desires and also my more exceptional ones. Their work has also been featured in other small presses and publications. Kat works as an editor and lives in Brooklyn. @letsgetadog

OUTspoken: A tribute to Nikki Giovanni (in person & live-streaming)
2025-02-01 18:00 - 20:00 | The Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Community Center, 208 West 13th Street, Room 101, New York, 10011, United States
In celebration of Black History Month, The Publishing Triangle in collaboration with the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division, presents a special OUTspoken Reading Series event celebrating the life of acclaimed Black lesbian poet, commentator, activist and educator, Nikki Giovanni.
Presenters will include JP Howard, Reginald Harris, Cheryl Boyce-Taylor, a Drag Queen Story Hour reading by Harmonica Sunbeam, Samiya Bashir, Darrel Alejandro Holnes, and UGBA (Nuyorican Poets Café slam team). The event will be hosted by Emanuel Xavier.
Join us in-person or watch the live-stream to hear some of our community’s most dynamic voices honor the legacy of one of our most acclaimed icons.
This event will take place in person in room 101 of The Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Community Center, 208 W. 13th Street, in collaboration with Bureau of General Services—Queer Division.
Registration is not required. Seating is first come, first served.
Also live-streaming on the Bureau’s YouTube channel:
youtube.com/@bgsqd
The Bureau will solicit donations at the beginning of the event—we especially encourage donations from those who do not plan to purchase any books. All are welcome to attend, with or without a donation. We will pass a bag for donations at the start of the event, but we can also take credit card donations at the event or on Venmo @BGSQD

Emanuel Xavier’s honors include the Marsha A. Gomez Cultural Heritage Award, a New York City Council Citation, a Gay City News Impact Award, and a Silver Medal in the Juan Felipe Herrera Best Poetry Book Award category at the International Latino Book Awards for his book Love(ly) Child, also a finalist for a Lambda Literary Award. His work has appeared in Latino Poetry: The Library of America Anthology, Poetry, A Gathering of the Tribes, and elsewhere. Emanuel Xavier is on the Board of The Publishing Triangle and is currently working on a memoir and a screenplay based on his 1999 cult novel, Christ Like.

JP Howard is a poet, educator, curator, and literary activist. Her debut poetry collection SAY/MIRROR (The Operating System) was a Lambda Literary finalist. She curates Women Writers in Bloom Poetry Salon.
http://www.jp-howard.com

Reginald Harris has been a finalist for a Lambda Literary Award and the Griot-Stadler prize. He won the 2012 Cave Canem / Northwestern University Press Poetry Prize for Autogeography. His work has appeared in numerous journals, anthologies, and online. Born in Annapolis, Maryland, and raised in Baltimore, he lives in Brooklyn.

Cheryl Boyce-Taylor is the author of seven collections of poetry which include Mama Phife Represents, a verse memoir about the life of her son, Hip Hop Legend, Malik “Phife Dawg” Taylor. Her most recent collection, The Limitless Heart, won the 2024 Firecracker Award for poetry. Cheryl is a graduate of The Stonecoast MFA program.

Harmonica Sunbeam, The Comedy Queen, has been delighting audiences at nightclubs, cabarets, fundraising events and supermarket openings throughout the United States and abroad for over 32 years. She is the North Jersey coordinator of Drag Queen Story Hour and since the inception of DQSH in the New York area, Miss Sunbeam has been featured in the NY Times and interviewed for a now viral video on Buzzfeed.

Samiya Bashir is the author of three poetry collections, most recently Field Theories, winner of the Oregon Book Award. Her fourth, I Hope This Helps, is forthcoming from Nightboat Books in 2025. A sought-after editor, Bashir currently serves as the June Jordan Visiting Scholar at Columbia University.

Darrel Alejandro Holnes is the author of Stepmotherland, winner of an International Latino Book Award and the Andres Montoya Poetry Prize and Migrant Psalms, winner of the Drinking Gourd Poetry Prize. Holnes is the winner of the National Endowment for the Arts Creative Writing Fellowship in Poetry and the C.P. Cavafy Poetry Prize. Holnes is also a recent nominee for the Best of the Net and an award-winning playwright, screenwriter, and director.

UGBA (oog ba) (pronoun inclusive) is a queer poet, rapper, playwright, actor, and activist based out of Brooklyn, NY. UGBA is a former member of the Public Theater’s Emerging Writers Group 2020-2023 cohort, a 2022 MAP Grant recipient, a 2020-2021 BAM Resident, 2024 Nuyorican Poetry Slam member, and former Artistic Director at NY Writers Coalition.

Jill Johnston in Motion: Clare Croft In Conversation with Ksenia Soboleva (in person & live-streaming)
2025-02-06 19:00 - 20:30 | Bureau of General Services—Queer Division, 208 West 13th Street, Room 210, New York, NY, 10011, United States
Clare Croft reads from her new book, Jill Johnston in Motion, which focuses on the dance critic turned lesbian provocateur Jill Johnston. Following the reading Croft will be in conversation with Ksenia Soboleva. In conjunction with “Archives Onstage: The Essential Jill Johnston” at NYU Skirball.

To reserve a copy of Jill Johnston in Motion (Duke University Press, October 29, 2024, paperback, $27.95) and/or The Essential Jill Johnston Reader, edited by Clare Croft (Duke University Press, October 29, 2024, paperback, $27.95) please write to us at contact@bgsqd.com with “please reserve a copy of Jill Johnston in Motion and/or Essential Jill Johnston for Feb. 6 event” in the subject line.
Thank you for supporting the Bureau by purchasing books from us!

This event will take place in person at the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division, on the second floor (room 210) of The LGBT Community Center, 208 W. 13th St., NYC, 10011.
Registration is encouraged, but not required.
Please register here.

Also live-streaming on the Bureau’s YouTube channel:
youtube.com/@bgsqd
The Bureau will solicit donations at the beginning of the event—we especially encourage donations from those who do not plan to purchase any books.
All are welcome to attend, with or without a donation.
We will pass a bag for donations at the start of the event, but we can also take credit card donations at the register or on Venmo @BGSQD

Clare Croft is a writer, a dance historian and theorist, a dramaturg and curator, and someone who dances. She is the author of Jill Johnston in Motion: Dance, Writing, and Lesbian Life and the editor of The Essential Jill Johnston Reader, both published by Duke University Press. She is also the editor of Queer Dance: Meanings and Makings; the founder and curator of the EXPLODE queer dance festival; and the author of Dancers as Diplomats: American Choreography in Cultural Exchange. Clare’s dance criticism has appeared in The Washington Post, the Austin American-Statesman, and The Brooklyn Rail. She is Associate Professor of American Culture at the University of Michigan, and holds a PhD in Performance as Public Practice from the University of Texas-Austin.

Dr. Ksenia M. Soboleva is a New York based writer and art historian specializing in queer art and culture. She holds a PhD from the Institute of Fine Arts, NYU, with a dissertation titled “Fragments: Art, AIDS, and Lesbian Identity in the United States.” Her writings have appeared in The Brooklyn Rail, BOMB Magazine, Artforum, frieze, Hyperallergic, as well as various monographs and exhibition catalogues. She has curated exhibitions at Baxter St. Camera Club, Candice Madey Gallery, and La MaMa Galleria. Soboleva was the 2020-2021 Vilcek Curatorial Fellow at the Guggenheim Museum, and the 2022-2024 Andrew W. Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow in Gender and LGBTQ+ History at the New York Historical Society. Currently, she is working on a book project titled “Friendship as a Way of Art: Queer Identity and Visual Citation,” and co-editing the first monograph on TRIAL BALLOON, a 1990s gallery and project space that highlighted lesbian artists. She teaches at the New School and NYU.

lesbian book club: February edition (in person only)
2025-02-08 11:00 - 12:00 | Bureau of General Services–Queer Division, 208 West 13th Street, Room 210, New York, NY, 10011, United States
We’ll be reading fiction and non-fiction — classic, contemporary, revealing and visionary. As a group we will decide what to read each month, focusing on lesbian authors and/or related topics. Co-founded by lesbian book lovers Judi Komaki and Piper Olsen.

For our February 8th meeting, we’ll discuss Freshwater, by Akwaeke Emezi (Grove Press, 2018, paperback, $18). To reserve a copy, please write to us at contact@bgsqd.com with “please reserve a copy of Freshwater for me” in the subject line.
And for our March 8th meeting, we’ll read Stone Butch Blues by Leslie Feinberg (1993). Digital and print editions of the book can be found on Leslie Feinberg’s website. Print editions are also available at the Bureau (see below).
From Feinberg’s website: https://www.lesliefeinberg.net/:
“The 20th Anniversary Author’s Edition of Stone Butch Blues is available in multiple formats:
“Click this link to automatically download your free PDF copy:
Stone-Butch-Blues-by-Leslie-Feinberg.pdf (886745 downloads)
“The at-cost print edition of Stone Butch Blues is once more available through Lulu.com – and at a slightly lower cost because of format re-design.”
And the Bureau sells at-cost print copies of Stone Butch Blues ($14–this covers printing, $12.21, plus shipping). To reserve a copy, please write to us at contact@bgsqd.com with “please reserve a copy of Stone Butch Blues” in the subject line.

Thank you for supporting the Bureau by purchasing books from us!

This event will take place in person at the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division, on the second floor (room 210) of The LGBT Community Center, 208 W. 13th St., NYC, 10011.
Registration is not required.

The Sexual Evolution: The Inherent Queerness of Animals (in person only)
2025-02-08 15:00 - 16:00 | Bureau of General Services–Queer Division, 208 West 13th Street, Room 210, New York, NY, 10011, United States
In The Sexual Evolution: How 500 Million Years of Sex, Gender, and Mating Shape Modern Relationships, biologist Nathan H. Lents argues persuasively that many of our supposedly modern ideas about gender and human sexuality are, in fact, deeply rooted in our animal ancestors. In this presentation, Lents will show how diverse sexual behavior is not a new development, is not unique to humans, and is most definitely not the product of modern progressive culture. Instead, it’s the product of millions of years of evolutionary experimentation throughout the animal kingdom. One of the greatest truths that biology has revealed is that Diversity Wins.
Author Nathan H. Lents will be joined in conversation by Bureau co-founder Greg Newton.
To reserve a copy of The Sexual Evolution (Mariner Books, February 4, 2025, hardcover, $32) please write to us at contact@bgsqd.com with “please reserve a copy of Sexual Evolution for Feb. 8 event” in the subject line.
Thank you for supporting the Bureau by purchasing books from us!

This event will take place in person at the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division, on the second floor (room 210) of The LGBT Community Center, 208 W. 13th St., NYC, 10011.
Registration is not required. Seating is first come, first served.
The Bureau will solicit donations at the beginning of the event—we especially encourage donations from those who do not plan to purchase any books.
All are welcome to attend, with or without a donation.
We will pass a bag for donations at the start of the event, but we can also take credit card donations at the register or on Venmo @BGSQD

Nathan H. Lents, Ph.D. is Professor of Biology at John Jay College (CUNY). His research lab studies human genome evolution and he is the author of three popular science books: Not So Different: Finding Human Nature in Animals, Human Errors: A Panorama of Our Glitches, from Pointless Bones to Broken Genes, and The Sexual Evolution: How 500 Million Years of Sex, Gender, and Mating Shape Modern Relationships (2025).

Rainbow Blossoms (in person only)
2025-02-09 11:00 - 12:00 | Bureau of General Services–Queer Division, 208 West 13th Street, Room 210, New York, NY, 10011, United States
A place to talk about growing up, puberty, and related topics for 8-12 year old queer/trans kids and their friends.
We’ll play some games to get to know each other, read some Cory Silverberg books, and discuss topics of interest to the kids.
Want to help facilitate discussion?
Get in touch. Let’s do this together: ellenbaxt@yahoo.com
Please register here
Wheelchair accessible.
Donation or book purchase encouraged!
This is an adult queer space and there may be images with sexual content on view.

This event will take place in person at the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division, on the second floor (room 210) of The LGBT Community Center, 208 W. 13th St., NYC, 10011.
Registration is encouraged, but not required.
Register here: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSekUufKML3x_aah1BX0pY8_NxGGYMPDeXQ5FJTldXqY5zjEZw/viewform

Fuckin' Transplants Issue 4 Release Party and Open Mic (in person & live-streaming)
2025-02-13 18:30 - 21:00 | Bureau of General Services–Queer Division, 208 West 13th Street, Room 210, New York, NY, 10011, United States
Have feelings about Valentine’s Day? WE DO TOO. Come share them with friends at the release party for issue 4 of Fuckin Transplants, a mostly T4T smut zine! Bring your valentine, meet a valentine, or tell us all about valentines past, we can’t wait to see you at the Bureau! 208 w 13th st, Room 210.
This is an open mic for poetry and prose only, on the themes of love, lust, heartbreak, or smut! Notes, app ramblings, journal entries, AO3 posts, text that made you swoon, + more are all welcome. Interested readers can sign up for ~5-7 minute spots from 6:30-7:15, the event will officially start at 7:30 pm.

Supporting the zine launch there will be readings from:
Jordyn, Kelby Clark, Maya Cordero, Veronica Rowan, + Venus Solomon

Comedic interludes by:
Blair Brennan and MG

And zine and art tabling by:
Catherine Jánszky, DISCOUNT GUILLOTINE, and Jordyn.

Also live-streaming on the Bureau’s YouTube channel:
youtube.com/@bgsqd
About:
Fuckin’ Transplants is a semi-autobiographical, T4T, lesbian smut zine written by lifelong Brooklynite, long-time Butch Top, and former teenage slash fanfic writer L’or. It was born out of their realization that there are (almost?) no butch/femme T4T stories out there! What a travesty! We exist, and are hot. You’ll hear at least one smutty story at the event.
This event is a fundraiser for trans folks facing all sorts of financial need, and all proceeds are redistributed. To donate you can venmo L’or directly @DitmasParkSlope.

How Pornographers Conspired to Kill Romance (in person & live-streaming)
2025-02-14 19:00 - 20:00 | Bureau of General Services–Queer Division, 208 West 13th Street, Room 210, New York, NY, 10011, United States
The die-off of romance among the younger generations (Millennials and Gen-Z) is palpable. But what if I told you that the trends we are witnessing with young people today began under their parents’ (Gen X and Boomer) and even their grandparents’ (Silent) generations? Drs. Sabrina Strings and Serene Khader will discuss the little-known crusade during the mid-20th century movement era (~1950s-1980) to undo romance as a backlash to feminism. Initiated by white male media moguls, men were advised against commitment unless to the “highest” type of woman. Later, many Black male entertainers would ally themselves to the cause—an unexpected consequence of racial integration. Together, their efforts resulted in an explosion of men who are wary of serious relationships with women, especially women who are neither rich nor white, the so-called “fuckboys.” This scintillating conversation will center research done for Dr. Strings’ latest book, The End of Love: Racism, Sexism and the Death of Romance, and find connections to Dr. Khader’s new book Faux Feminism: Why We Fall for White Feminism and How We Can Stop.

To reserve a copy of Sabrina String’s The End of Love: Racism, Sexism, and the Death of Romance (Beacon Press, January 21, 2025, paperback, $18.95) and/or Serene Khader’s Faux Feminism: Why We Fall for White Feminism and How We Can Stop (Beacon Press, October 29, 2024, hardcover, $28.95) please write to us at contact@bgsqd.com with “please reserve a copy of End of Love and/or Faux Feminism for Feb. 14 event” in the subject line.
Thank you for supporting the Bureau by purchasing books from us!
This event will take place in person at the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division, on the second floor (room 210) of The LGBT Community Center, 208 W. 13th St., NYC, 10011.
Registration is not required. Seating is first come, first served.

Also live-streaming on the Bureau’s YouTube channel:
youtube.com/@bgsqd

The Bureau will solicit donations at the beginning of the event—we especially encourage donations from those who do not plan to purchase any books.
All are welcome to attend, with or without a donation.
We will pass a bag for donations at the start of the event, but we can also take credit card donations at the register or on Venmo @BGSQD

Dr. Sabrina Strings is Professor and North Hall Chair of Black Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Her research examines race, gender, and embodiment in science, media, and medicine. She has been featured in dozens of venues, including BBC News, NPR, Huffington Post, NowThis!, Essence, Vogue, The Washington Post, TIME, and The New York Times. She is the author of the award-winning book Fearing the Black Body: The Racial Origins of Fat Phobia (NYU 2019). Her second book, The End of Love: Racism, Sexism & the Death of Romance was released with Beacon Press (2024). Find her on the Netflix docuseries The Black Beauty Effect, and the CNN Original Series TV on the Edge: Moments that Shaped Our Culture, now streaming on HBO Max. Follow her latest moves on Twitter @Sastrings, and IG @YoginiBlack.

Dr. Serene Khader holds the Jay Newman Chair in Philosophy of Culture at Brooklyn College and is Professor of Philosophy and Women’s and Gender Studies at the CUNY Graduate Center. Her new book, Faux Feminism: Why We Fall for White Feminism and How We Can Stop (Beacon 2024), sets out to explain what makes white feminism wrong, why it’s so easy to end up supporting it, and what feminists might believe in instead. She argues that faux feminisms are rooted in the misunderstanding that feminism is about individual freedom, rather than opposition to group-based hierarchy. It has been called “a page-turner” by “Chandra Talpade Mohanty, “well-researched, compellingly written, and passionately argued,” by Kirkus reviews, and “a marvelous and essential read” by Rafia Zakaria.

TELL: Greatness (in person & live streaming)
2025-02-15 19:00 - 20:30 | Bureau of General Services–Queer Division, 208 West 13th Street, Room 210, New York, NY, 10011, United States
TELL is a monthly queer storytelling show hosted and curated by Drae Campbell. It is the longest running event at the Bureau! 10 years and going. Each month there is a different theme and a different line up of queer artists who tell true stories from their lives on a theme.
The theme for February is Greatness, featuring storytellers Kate McDonough, Glenn Marla, and Mariel Reyes.

This event will take place in person at the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division, on the second floor (room 210) of The LGBT Community Center, 208 W. 13th St., NYC, 10011.
Registration is not required. Seating is first come, first served.
Also live-streaming on the Bureau’s YouTube channel:
youtube.com/@bgsqd
Suggested donation to benefit the storytellers and the Bureau: $10.
All are welcome to attend, with or without a donation.
We will pass a bag for donations at the start of the event, but we can also take credit card donations at the register or on Venmo @BGSQD

Drae Campbell is the host and curator of TELL, an award winning podcast that can be found anywhere you listen to podcasts.
Theater: The Nosebleed (Lincoln Center Theater, Woolly Mammoth Theater & National Tour, Lortel Nominated), Jesus Hopped The ‘A’ Train (Wellfleet Harbor Actors Theater), Only You Can Prevent Wildfires (Teatro Circulo), My Old Man (Dixon Place), Storm Still (DirectorFest, Drama League), La Cage Aux Folles (Barrington Stage Company).
Film and TV:Senior Escort Service, Blunderpuss, It’s Very Common, TOW.
TV: Bull, New Amsterdam.
BFA, The University Of The Arts
Ig @draebiz and @tellqueerz

Kate McDonough is a queer non binary trans writer, organizer and performance artist. Their work explores the politics of place v. space and finding radical queer joy in the midst of an apocalypse. Originally from the Bronx, Kate has been an organizer in New York City and State for over a decade and believes that imagination is a cornerstone for radical change
Kate is the co-host of Joy in the Soft Apocalypse, a bi monthly literary salon at The Word is Change bookstore, and holds an MFA in Creative Writing from The New School.

Glenn Marla is a mostly Hudson Valley and very often Brooklyn based theater artist, puppet maker and art therapist.
Glenn’s performance work focuses on themes of body liberation, gender, queerness, fat, and shifting cycles of trauma.
Glenn’s sun and moon are in aquarius with leo rising.

Mariel Reyes is an Queer Afrolatinx performance artist & producer, with works based out of some of your favorite experimental theater spaces in NYC (Dixon Place, Brooklyn Arts Exchange) She has also appeared on screen in the film “Appropriate Behaviour” which premiered at Sundance in 2014 and the award winning web series “The Feels.”

OUTspoken: The Publishing Triangle’s Reading Series, February Edition (in person & live-streaming)
2025-02-19 19:00 - 20:30 | Bureau of General Services–Queer Division, 208 West 13th Street, Room 210, New York, NY, 10011, United States
The Publishing Triangle presents its monthly OUTspoken Reading Series as host Rob Byrnes welcomes Tom Cardamone, Kathleen Warnock, Jerry Wheeler, Dale Corvino, Frederick Smith, Daniel Meltz, and Bruce Whitacre.
Join us in-person or watch the live-stream to hear from some of queer literature’s most dynamic established and up-and-coming voices.

This event will take place in person at the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division, on the second floor (room 210) of The LGBT Community Center, 208 W. 13th St., NYC, 10011.

Registration is not required. Seating is first come, first served.

Also live-streaming on the Bureau’s YouTube channel:
youtube.com/@bgsqd
The Bureau will solicit donations at the beginning of the event—we especially encourage donations from those who do not plan to purchase any books.
All are welcome to attend, with or without a donation.

We will pass a bag for donations at the start of the event, but we can also take credit card donations at the register or on Venmo @BGSQD

Shawn Stewart Ruff in Conversation with Jacqueline Woodson (in person & live-streaming)
2025-02-28 19:00 - 21:00 | Bureau of General Services–Queer Division, 208 West 13th Street, Room 210, New York, NY, 10011, United States
Lambda-Award winning novelist Shawn Stewart Ruff will read from his latest fiction, Days Running – an ‘intimate and compelling narrative’ situated in the ‘intersection of race, queerness and trauma’ (Steven Reigns) – and engage in conversation with acclaimed author Jacqueline Woodson about queer, Black storytelling, and more.
About Days Running :
It’s a snowy winter in 1970s Cincinnati. Cliffy Douglas – gay, Black and brainy – is trying to make it through his senior year, dodging his volatile father, half-raising his baby siblings, and running around with his secret boyfriend, whose dizzying physical attraction runs as hot as his temper.
When a single, deliberate act of violence lands Cliffy in the hospital, his world is flung into chaos and his carefully planned-for future is threatened. In DAYS RUNNING (DOPAMINE Press; On-sale 2/25/25), award-winning novelist Shawn Stewart Ruff returns to literary territory he has claimed and perfected, bringing us into the jagged world of one queer teenager fighting to outrun the danger at his heels and seize his life as his own
Praise for DAYS RUNNING:
“With an intimate and compelling narrative, DAYS RUNNING delves into the intersection of race, queerness, and trauma.”
– Steven Reigns, A Quilt for David
“I loved this beautiful and haunting novel, about escape, survival, and justice, in a novel both timely and timeless.”
– Carley Moore, Panpocalypse
“A passionate, bold, and gripping story. Ruff fearlessly topples the monoliths of masculinity.”
– James Hannaham, Didn’t Nobody Give a Shit What Happened to Carlotta

To reserve a copy of Days Running (Dopamine/Semiotext(e), February 25, 2025, paperback, $17.95) please write to us at contact@bgsqd.com with “please reserve Days Running for Feb. 28 event” in the subject line.
Thank you for supporting the Bureau by purchasing books from us!

This event will take place in person at the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division, on the second floor (room 210) of The LGBT Community Center, 208 W. 13th St., NYC, 10011.

Registration is not required. Seating is first come, first served.

Also live-streaming on the Bureau’s YouTube channel:
youtube.com/@bgsqd
The Bureau will solicit donations at the beginning of the event—we especially encourage donations from those who do not plan to purchase any books.
All are welcome to attend, with or without a donation.

We will pass a bag for donations at the start of the event, but we can also take credit card donations at the register or on Venmo @BGSQD

Shawn Stewart Ruff is the author of three novels, including Finlater, 2008 winner of a Lambda Literary Award for Debut Fiction and a finalist for the Edmund White Debut Fiction Award. He is also the editor of the landmark Go the Way Your Blood Beats: An Anthology of Lesbian and Gay Fiction by African American Writers (1996).
Jacqueline Woodson is an American writer of books for adults, children, and adolescents. She is best known for her National Book Award-Winning memoir Brown Girl Dreaming, and her Newbery Honor-winning titles After Tupac and D Foster, Feathers, and Show Way. Her picture books The Day You Begin and The Year We Learned to Fly were NY Times Bestsellers. After serving as the Young People’s Poet Laureate from 2015 to 2017, she was named the National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature by the Library of Congress for 2018–19. She was awarded the Hans Christian Andersen Medal in 2020. Later that same year, she was named a MacArthur Fellow.

(Postponed) The Inaugural Amber Hollibaugh Seminar: Queer Economies of Care: Community, Desire, and the Politics of Necessity (in person only)
2025-03-05 18:00 - 21:00 | Bureau of General Services–Queer Division, 208 West 13th Street, Room 210, New York, NY, 10011, United States
Please note that the first meeting of the seminar will take place on
March 12th, NOT March 5th.
NO LONGER ACCEPTING APPLICATIONS
About the Seminar
CLAGS: The Center for LGBTQ Studies and the Barnard Center for Research on Women are thrilled to announce the Inaugural Amber Hollibaugh Seminar in the city, a six-week program exploring the transformative legacy of Amber Hollibaugh—a radical lesbian feminist, scholar, artist, and lifelong activist for queer survival economies.
Facilitated by interdisciplinary artist and educator Gili Rappaport, this seminar invites participants to dive into themes of queer survival, care, and community resilience in the face of economic hardship, criminalization, and marginalization. Participants will engage with foundational texts, recorded dialogues, and contributions from local artists and activists while contributing to a living archive honoring queer histories and futures.
The Inaugural Amber Hollibaugh Seminar (2024) relaunches CLAGS’ public education series, Seminars in the City, originally held in July 1998.
The Amber Hollibaugh Seminar is co-sponsored by the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division (@bgsqd) and Barnard Center for Research on Women.

Why Join?
This seminar is more than a class—it’s a space to build community, a book club to reflect on queer survival strategies, and an homage to Amber’s vision of community care and radical solidarity. Participants will explore the intersections of class, desire, and kinship through a rich syllabus of readings, discussions, and creative work.
Whether you’re an organizer, artist, body worker, visionary, builder, or community member, this seminar offers a unique opportunity to learn, share, and contribute to an archive of queer care and resistance.
Schedule
Dates: March 12 – April 16, 2025
Time: Wednesdays, 6–9 PM
Location: Bureau of General Services—Queer Division (208 West 13th Street, NYC)
Please note: The April 16th meeting will NOT take place at the Bureau. We will post the location for that date as soon as we have that confirmed.
This is an in-person experience. Unfortunately, we cannot accommodate remote participants at this time.
What to Expect
Each week focuses on a key theme:

Week 1: Queer Survival Economies — Honoring Amber Hollibaugh’s Legacy
Week 2: Public Space, Gentrification, and Queer Displacement
Week 3: Oral Histories and Resilient Queer Spaces
Week 4: Queer Desire and Class as Radical Resistance
Week 5: Trans and BIPOC Narratives on Survival and Criminalization
Week 6: Community-Based Economies and Mutual Aid

Reading list (excerpts provided free of charge, available through the CLAGS archive)

Amber Hollibaugh, My Dangerous Desires: A Queer Girl Dreaming Her Way Home
Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha, Dirty River: A Queer Femme of Color Dreaming Her Way Home
Audre Lorde, Zami: A New Spelling of My Name
Gloria Anzaldúa, Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza
bell hooks, Belonging: A Culture of Place
Alexis Pauline Gumbs, M Archive: After the End of the World
José Esteban Muñoz, Cruising Utopia: The Then and There of Queer Futurity
Vivek Shraya, I’m Afraid of Men
Gayle Rubin, Thinking Sex: Notes for a Radical Theory of the Politics of Sexuality
Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha, Care Work: Dreaming Disability Justice
Tourmaline, Black Trans Feminism is the Future
Eric A. Stanley and Nat Smith (Eds.), Captive Genders: Trans Embodiment and the Prison Industrial Complex
Sylvia Rivera, Queens in Exile, The Forgotten Ones
Dean Spade, Mutual Aid: Building Solidarity During This Crisis (and the Next)
Adrienne Maree Brown, Pleasure Activism
Alexis Pauline Gumbs, Dub: Finding Ceremony

Participation Details

Open to NYC publics, free of charge
We encourage applications from first-time students, people from underrepresented communities, and interests that reflect the city’s diversity of cultures, aesthetics, and creative practices. We strive to create an inclusive and accessible space for all participants. If you need any accommodations to fully participate in the seminar, please note this in the application form.
20 spots available—apply soon!
Participants will have the option to contribute to a collaborative publication and CLAGS archive project

NO LONGER ACCEPTING APPLICATIONS
About Amber Hollibaugh
Amber Hollibaugh was a legendary radical/lesbian/feminist/scholar/artist. A lifelong political activist and organizer, she was on the founding board of Queers for Economic Justice and served as QEJ’s Executive Director from 2011-2014. She established Queer Survival Economies (QSE), a project at the Barnard Center for Research on Women addressing the intersections of sexuality, poverty, homelessness, labor, and the criminalization of survival. Hollibaugh was the Founding Director of the Lesbian AIDS Project at GMHC, the first effort of its kind to organize with and for lesbians living with HIV. Amber also served as the Director for Aging Initiatives at the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force. She fought for class and poverty issues to be addressed by an otherwise very bourgeois LGBTQ movement. Amber was a fierce advocate for transnational solidarity and movement building around sexuality, bodily autonomy and pleasure. Her publications included the book My Dangerous Desires: A Queer Girl Dreaming Her Way Home, and she directed and co-produced the documentary film The Heart of the Matter. Her works have been translated into several languages, and she worked very closely with activists in China and India.
Image credit: Joaquin Golez @othereros

CANCELED: Manhattan Institute for Psychoanalysis Colloquium with Gila Ashtor: Erotophobia: Laplanche, Queer Theory & Psychoanalysis (registration required)
2025-03-07 19:30 - 21:30 | Bureau of General Services–Queer Division, 208 West 13th Street, Room 210, New York, NY, 10011, United States
THIS EVENT HAS BEEN CANCELED.

In contemporary psychoanalysis, it has become popular to accuse the clinical field of hating sex, hating pleasure, and being generally – both in its theory and in its techniques – hostile and averse to sex and sexuality. Although this isn’t a particularly new argument – French psychoanalysis has been accusing American psychoanalysis of this in one form or another for the past seventy-five years – the argument has taken on new momentum with the popularization of queer theory. In this presentation, I will draw on the work of Jean Laplanche to challenge this popular argument by showing that it depends on a simplistic version of queer theory that totally misrecognizes its radical potential. In so doing, I will demonstrate that to the extent we are afraid of sexuality it may have less to do with sensational, exotic or shattering sex, but sexuality in relation to otherness, desire that thrusts and propels us toward others in ways we can’t comprehend and can’t quite escape. I elaborate Laplanche’s account of “enlarged sexuality” to elaborate “erotophobia” as the denial of enlarged sexuality.

The Manhattan Institute is a NY State approved provider of continuing education hours for: LCSW, LMSW, LCAT, LMHC and Licensed Psychologists.
For in-person attendance you will receive an E-ticket through Eventbrite.
TICKETS: $50.00

please RSVP here to attend in person
Students at other Institutes can purchase tickets for $25.00
(Proof of student status required)
MIP candidates can attend for free.
This event will take place in person at the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division, on the second floor (room 210) of
The LGBT Community Center, 208 W. 13th St., NYC, 10011.

Students also have the option of attending virtually:
please RSVP here to attend via Zoom

Gila Ashtor, PhD, LP is an Assistant Professor of Clinical Psychoanalysis at Columbia University. She is also on the Faculty at New York University’s Postdoctoral Program in Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy, and at IPTAR. She is the author of three books, Homo Psyche: On Queer Theory and Erotophobia (Fordham UP, 2021), Exigent Psychoanalysis: The Interventions of Jean Laplanche (Routledge, 2021), and Aural History (Punctum, 2020). Her primary areas of academic and clinical expertise include identity, dissociative disorders, trauma and sexuality. She is in private practice in New York City.

lesbian book club: March edition (in person only)
2025-03-08 11:00 - 12:00 | Bureau of General Services–Queer Division, 208 West 13th Street, Room 210, New York, NY, 10011, United States
We’ll be reading fiction and non-fiction — classic, contemporary, revealing and visionary. As a group we will decide what to read each month, focusing on lesbian authors and/or related topics. Co-founded by lesbian book lovers Judi Komaki and Piper Olsen.

For our March 8th meeting, we’ll read Stone Butch Blues by Leslie Feinberg (1993). Digital and print editions of the book can be found on Leslie Feinberg’s website. Print editions are also available at the Bureau (see below).
From Feinberg’s website: https://www.lesliefeinberg.net/:
“The 20th Anniversary Author’s Edition of Stone Butch Blues is available in multiple formats:
“Click this link to automatically download your free PDF copy:
Stone-Butch-Blues-by-Leslie-Feinberg.pdf (886745 downloads)
“The at-cost print edition of Stone Butch Blues is once more available through Lulu.com – and at a slightly lower cost because of format re-design.”
And the Bureau sells at-cost print copies of Stone Butch Blues ($14–this covers printing, $12.21, plus shipping). To reserve a copy, please write to us at contact@bgsqd.com with “please reserve a copy of Stone Butch Blues” in the subject line.

Thank you for supporting the Bureau by purchasing books from us!

This event will take place in person at the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division, on the second floor (room 210) of The LGBT Community Center, 208 W. 13th St., NYC, 10011.
Registration is not required.

Elizabeth Costello, author of The Good War, in Conversation with Kate Rounds (in person only)
2025-03-08 15:00 - 17:00 | Bureau of General Services–Queer Division, 208 West 13th Street, Room 210, New York, NY, 10011, United States
Elizabeth Costello will read from her feminist noir/queer-coming-of-age novel The Good War and chat with journalist Kate Rounds about writing and life. Stick around afterward for a reception with snacks provided by Red Table.

To reserve a copy of Elizabeth Costello’s The Good War (Regal House Publishing, January 28, 2025, paperback, $21.95) please write to us at contact@bgsqd.com with “please reserve a copy of The Good War for March 8 event” in the subject line.
Thank you for supporting the Bureau by purchasing books from us!

This event will take place in person at the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division, on the second floor (room 210) of The LGBT Community Center, 208 W. 13th St., NYC, 10011.
Registration is not required. Seating is first come, first served.
The Bureau will solicit donations at the beginning of the event—we especially encourage donations from those who do not plan to purchase any books.
All are welcome to attend, with or without a donation.
We will pass a bag for donations at the start of the event, but we can also take credit card donations at the register or on Venmo @BGSQD

Elizabeth Costello is a writer living in Portland, Oregon. She works (remotely) as an editor for UC Berkeley and co-founded the ekphraestival, a generative exchange among visual artists and poets that culminates in readings and exhibitions in April, national poetry month. Her debut novel, The Good War, is out now from Regal House and was described by Publishers Weekly as “dark and intense…lyrical…Moody and atmospheric, this gritty tale is worth a look.”

Kate Rounds is the author of the novel Catboad Road, published by Bywater Books. She’s a veteran journalist and has an MFA in Creative Writing from Goddard College. She lives in Jersey City without a cat.

The Inaugural Amber Hollibaugh Seminar: Queer Economies of Care: Community, Desire, and the Politics of Necessity (in person only)
2025-03-12 18:00 - 21:00 | Bureau of General Services—Queer Division, 208 West 13th Street, Room 210, New York, NY, 10011, United States
NO LONGER ACCEPTING APPLICATIONS
About the Seminar
CLAGS: The Center for LGBTQ Studies and the Barnard Center for Research on Women are thrilled to announce the Inaugural Amber Hollibaugh Seminar in the city, a six-week program exploring the transformative legacy of Amber Hollibaugh—a radical lesbian feminist, scholar, artist, and lifelong activist for queer survival economies.
Facilitated by interdisciplinary artist and educator Gili Rappaport, this seminar invites participants to dive into themes of queer survival, care, and community resilience in the face of economic hardship, criminalization, and marginalization. Participants will engage with foundational texts, recorded dialogues, and contributions from local artists and activists while contributing to a living archive honoring queer histories and futures.
The Inaugural Amber Hollibaugh Seminar (2024) relaunches CLAGS’ public education series, Seminars in the City, originally held in July 1998.
The Amber Hollibaugh Seminar is co-sponsored by the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division (@bgsqd) and Barnard Center for Research on Women.

Why Join?
This seminar is more than a class—it’s a space to build community, a book club to reflect on queer survival strategies, and an homage to Amber’s vision of community care and radical solidarity. Participants will explore the intersections of class, desire, and kinship through a rich syllabus of readings, discussions, and creative work.
Whether you’re an organizer, artist, body worker, visionary, builder, or community member, this seminar offers a unique opportunity to learn, share, and contribute to an archive of queer care and resistance.
Schedule
Dates: March 12 – April 16, 2025
Time: Wednesdays, 6–9 PM
Location: Bureau of General Services—Queer Division (208 West 13th Street, NYC)
Please note: The April 16th meeting will NOT take place at the Bureau. We will post the location for that date as soon as we have that confirmed.
This is an in-person experience. Unfortunately, we cannot accommodate remote participants at this time.
What to Expect
Each week focuses on a key theme:

Week 1: Queer Survival Economies — Honoring Amber Hollibaugh’s Legacy
Week 2: Public Space, Gentrification, and Queer Displacement
Week 3: Oral Histories and Resilient Queer Spaces
Week 4: Queer Desire and Class as Radical Resistance
Week 5: Trans and BIPOC Narratives on Survival and Criminalization
Week 6: Community-Based Economies and Mutual Aid

Reading list (excerpts provided free of charge, available through the CLAGS archive)

Amber Hollibaugh, My Dangerous Desires: A Queer Girl Dreaming Her Way Home
Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha, Dirty River: A Queer Femme of Color Dreaming Her Way Home
Audre Lorde, Zami: A New Spelling of My Name
Gloria Anzaldúa, Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza
bell hooks, Belonging: A Culture of Place
Alexis Pauline Gumbs, M Archive: After the End of the World
José Esteban Muñoz, Cruising Utopia: The Then and There of Queer Futurity
Vivek Shraya, I’m Afraid of Men
Gayle Rubin, Thinking Sex: Notes for a Radical Theory of the Politics of Sexuality
Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha, Care Work: Dreaming Disability Justice
Tourmaline, Black Trans Feminism is the Future
Eric A. Stanley and Nat Smith (Eds.), Captive Genders: Trans Embodiment and the Prison Industrial Complex
Sylvia Rivera, Queens in Exile, The Forgotten Ones
Dean Spade, Love in a F*cked-Up World: How to Build Relationships, Hook Up, and Raise Hell Together
Adrienne Maree Brown, Pleasure Activism
Alexis Pauline Gumbs, Dub: Finding Ceremony

Participation Details

Open to NYC publics, free of charge
We encourage applications from first-time students, people from underrepresented communities, and interests that reflect the city’s diversity of cultures, aesthetics, and creative practices. We strive to create an inclusive and accessible space for all participants. If you need any accommodations to fully participate in the seminar, please note this in the application form.
20 spots available—apply soon!
Participants will have the option to contribute to a collaborative publication and CLAGS archive project

NO LONGER ACCEPTING APPLICATIONS
About Amber Hollibaugh
Amber Hollibaugh was a legendary radical/lesbian/feminist/scholar/artist. A lifelong political activist and organizer, she was on the founding board of Queers for Economic Justice and served as QEJ’s Executive Director from 2011-2014. She established Queer Survival Economies (QSE), a project at the Barnard Center for Research on Women addressing the intersections of sexuality, poverty, homelessness, labor, and the criminalization of survival. Hollibaugh was the Founding Director of the Lesbian AIDS Project at GMHC, the first effort of its kind to organize with and for lesbians living with HIV. Amber also served as the Director for Aging Initiatives at the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force. She fought for class and poverty issues to be addressed by an otherwise very bourgeois LGBTQ movement. Amber was a fierce advocate for transnational solidarity and movement building around sexuality, bodily autonomy and pleasure. Her publications included the book My Dangerous Desires: A Queer Girl Dreaming Her Way Home, and she directed and co-produced the documentary film The Heart of the Matter. Her works have been translated into several languages, and she worked very closely with activists in China and India.
Image credit: Joaquin Golez @othereros

OUTspoken: The Publishing Triangle’s Reading Series, March Edition (in person & live-streaming)
2025-03-13 19:00 - 21:00 | Bureau of General Services–Queer Division, 208 West 13th Street, Room 210, New York, NY, 10011, United States
The Publishing Triangle presents its monthly OUTspoken Reading Series as host Rob Byrnes welcomes Shawn Stewart Ruff, Christian Gullette, Elizabeth Costello, Lucian Childs, Barry Brennessel, Sarah Sarai, and Stephen Greco.

Join us in-person or watch the live-stream to hear from some of queer literature’s most dynamic established and up-and-coming voices.

This event will take place in person at the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division, on the second floor (room 210) of The LGBT Community Center, 208 W. 13th St., NYC, 10011.

Registration is not required. Seating is first come, first served.

Also live-streaming on the Bureau’s YouTube channel:
youtube.com/@bgsqd
The Bureau will solicit donations at the beginning of the event—we especially encourage donations from those who do not plan to purchase any books.
All are welcome to attend, with or without a donation.

We will pass a bag for donations at the start of the event, but we can also take credit card donations at the register or on Venmo @BGSQD

TELL: LUCK (in person & live-streaming)
2025-03-15 19:00 - 20:30 | Bureau of General Services—Queer Division, 208 West 13th Street, Room 210, New York, NY, 10011, United States
TELL is a monthly queer storytelling show hosted and curated by Drae Campbell. It is the longest running event at the Bureau! 10 years and going. Each month there is a different theme and a different line up of queer artists who tell true stories from their lives on a theme.
The theme for March is Luck, featuring storytellers Tanya Marquardt and Kei Williams.

This event will take place in person at the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division, on the second floor (room 210) of The LGBT Community Center, 208 W. 13th St., NYC, 10011.
Registration is not required. Seating is first come, first served.
Also live-streaming on the Bureau’s YouTube channel:
youtube.com/@bgsqd
Suggested donation to benefit the storytellers and the Bureau: $10.
All are welcome to attend, with or without a donation.
We will pass a bag for donations at the start of the event, but we can also take credit card donations at the register or on Venmo @BGSQD

Drae Campbellis the host and curator of TELL, an award winning podcast that can be found anywhere you listen to podcasts.
Theater: The Nosebleed (Lincoln Center Theater, Woolly Mammoth Theater & National Tour, Lortel Nominated), Jesus Hopped The ‘A’ Train (Wellfleet Harbor Actors Theater), Only You Can Prevent Wildfires (Teatro Circulo), My Old Man (Dixon Place), Storm Still (DirectorFest, Drama League), La Cage Aux Folles (Barrington Stage Company).
Film and TV:Senior Escort Service, Blunderpuss, It’s Very Common, TOW.
TV: Bull, New Amsterdam.
BFA, The University Of The Arts
Ig @draebiz and @tellqueerz

Tanya Marquardt is a writer and performer in Lenapehoking/Brooklyn. Their book Stray: Memoir of a Runaway was named a Best Queer & History Bio by The Advocate and Some Must Watch While Some Must Sleep, Tanya’s play about being a sleep talker, toured internationally and inspired an NPR Invisibila. This year they will publish a piece on The Rocky Horror Picture Show with Feminist Press, and write about recconecting with Magyar queer archives and folkdance in upcoming anthology Do Trans People Dream of Electric Sheep; their play HOUSE, a transfeminist retelling of Ibsen’s A Doll’s House is in development.

Born in Upstate NY, Kei Williams (they/them) is a queer transmasculine organizer, artist, and historian. Kei currently serves as NEW Pride Agenda’s Interim Executive Director. In 2021, Kei was selected as a Community Fellow through the Mellon Initiative for Emerging Scholars at The New School, where they co-teach a Media Theory course, and was honored with the Black Voices for Black Justice Award (2022) as a leader in the fight for racial and gender justice.
As a founding member of Black Lives Matter NYC and part of Movement Netlab, Kei has helped to shape powerful campaigns and developed practical tools to scale up movements grounded in abolition, democracy, and love. Kei joined Black Gotham Experience in November 2016, a visual storytelling project elevating the impact of the African Diaspora by remembering together through walks, talks, and artistic commissions. Their work has been featured at The Shed, Lincoln Center, New Museum, and the NYC Landmarks Department.
Outside of work and walking, Kei is a homebody, kept company by their dog Spartacus and their dozen inherited plants. Follow Kei at @blackboikei on Twitter and IG.

The Inaugural Amber Hollibaugh Seminar: Queer Economies of Care: Community, Desire, and the Politics of Necessity (in person only)
2025-03-19 18:00 - 21:00 | Bureau of General Services–Queer Division, 208 West 13th Street, Room 210, New York, NY, 10011, United States
NO LONGER ACCEPTING APPLICATIONS
About the Seminar
CLAGS: The Center for LGBTQ Studies and the Barnard Center for Research on Women are thrilled to announce the Inaugural Amber Hollibaugh Seminar in the city, a six-week program exploring the transformative legacy of Amber Hollibaugh—a radical lesbian feminist, scholar, artist, and lifelong activist for queer survival economies.
Facilitated by interdisciplinary artist and educator Gili Rappaport, this seminar invites participants to dive into themes of queer survival, care, and community resilience in the face of economic hardship, criminalization, and marginalization. Participants will engage with foundational texts, recorded dialogues, and contributions from local artists and activists while contributing to a living archive honoring queer histories and futures.
The Inaugural Amber Hollibaugh Seminar (2024) relaunches CLAGS’ public education series, Seminars in the City, originally held in July 1998.
The Amber Hollibaugh Seminar is co-sponsored by the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division (@bgsqd) and Barnard Center for Research on Women.

Why Join?
This seminar is more than a class—it’s a space to build community, a book club to reflect on queer survival strategies, and an homage to Amber’s vision of community care and radical solidarity. Participants will explore the intersections of class, desire, and kinship through a rich syllabus of readings, discussions, and creative work.
Whether you’re an organizer, artist, body worker, visionary, builder, or community member, this seminar offers a unique opportunity to learn, share, and contribute to an archive of queer care and resistance.
Schedule
Dates: March 5 – April 9, 2025
Time: Wednesdays, 6–9 PM
Location: Bureau of General Services—Queer Division (208 West 13th Street, NYC)
Please note: The April 16th meeting will NOT take place at the Bureau. We will post the location for that date as soon as we have that confirmed.
This is an in-person experience. Unfortunately, we cannot accommodate remote participants at this time.
What to Expect
Each week focuses on a key theme:

Week 1: Queer Survival Economies — Honoring Amber Hollibaugh’s Legacy
Week 2: Public Space, Gentrification, and Queer Displacement
Week 3: Oral Histories and Resilient Queer Spaces
Week 4: Queer Desire and Class as Radical Resistance
Week 5: Trans and BIPOC Narratives on Survival and Criminalization
Week 6: Community-Based Economies and Mutual Aid

Reading list (excerpts provided free of charge, available through the CLAGS archive)

Amber Hollibaugh, My Dangerous Desires: A Queer Girl Dreaming Her Way Home
Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha, Dirty River: A Queer Femme of Color Dreaming Her Way Home
Audre Lorde, Zami: A New Spelling of My Name
Gloria Anzaldúa, Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza
bell hooks, Belonging: A Culture of Place
Alexis Pauline Gumbs, M Archive: After the End of the World
José Esteban Muñoz, Cruising Utopia: The Then and There of Queer Futurity
Vivek Shraya, I’m Afraid of Men
Gayle Rubin, Thinking Sex: Notes for a Radical Theory of the Politics of Sexuality
Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha, Care Work: Dreaming Disability Justice
Tourmaline, Black Trans Feminism is the Future
Eric A. Stanley and Nat Smith (Eds.), Captive Genders: Trans Embodiment and the Prison Industrial Complex
Sylvia Rivera, Queens in Exile, The Forgotten Ones
Dean Spade, Love in a F*cked-Up World: How to Build Relationships, Hook Up, and Raise Hell Together
Adrienne Maree Brown, Pleasure Activism
Alexis Pauline Gumbs, Dub: Finding Ceremony

Participation Details

Open to NYC publics, free of charge
We encourage applications from first-time students, people from underrepresented communities, and interests that reflect the city’s diversity of cultures, aesthetics, and creative practices. We strive to create an inclusive and accessible space for all participants. If you need any accommodations to fully participate in the seminar, please note this in the application form.
20 spots available—apply soon!
Participants will have the option to contribute to a collaborative publication and CLAGS archive project

NO LONGER ACCEPTING APPLICATIONS
About Amber Hollibaugh
Amber Hollibaugh was a legendary radical/lesbian/feminist/scholar/artist. A lifelong political activist and organizer, she was on the founding board of Queers for Economic Justice and served as QEJ’s Executive Director from 2011-2014. She established Queer Survival Economies (QSE), a project at the Barnard Center for Research on Women addressing the intersections of sexuality, poverty, homelessness, labor, and the criminalization of survival. Hollibaugh was the Founding Director of the Lesbian AIDS Project at GMHC, the first effort of its kind to organize with and for lesbians living with HIV. Amber also served as the Director for Aging Initiatives at the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force. She fought for class and poverty issues to be addressed by an otherwise very bourgeois LGBTQ movement. Amber was a fierce advocate for transnational solidarity and movement building around sexuality, bodily autonomy and pleasure. Her publications included the book My Dangerous Desires: A Queer Girl Dreaming Her Way Home, and she directed and co-produced the documentary film The Heart of the Matter. Her works have been translated into several languages, and she worked very closely with activists in China and India.
Image credit: Joaquin Golez @othereros
